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31 March 2014

These are from a while ago, I'm just getting around to posting them now. I am exhausted and I can't remember where I put all of my new swatches from the last week or two. I've been playing around with the polishes I don't wear all that often and this is what happened!

Here I have on Essence Iced Strawberry cream and on the accent nail Essence Sparkling waterlily. Both are 3 coats. I like both of them but they aren't really my go-to polishes. Iced Strawberry cream is an amazing pedicure polish. Nice and simple but it has a lovely shimmer in it. Sparkling Waterlily is an interesting polish but it's so sheer. I like the end result but it needs a good 3 coats on short nails (definitely 4 if you have visible nail line)

28 March 2014

I featured this in my Best of beauty Haircare heroes post a few weeks back so I decided it was high time for a full review! I've had the L'oreal Extraordinary oil for a good few months now (I think I got it before Christmas?) It comes in a glass bottle and a pump on top which is so much handier for getting the right amount of oil out. It has a floral scent which is a bit strong but once you run it through your hair the scent is gone so I wouldn't let that put you off if you are not a fan of floral scents.

I use about a pump for my shoulder length hair. I generally use it on damp hair but you can use it before washing your hair or on dry hair. My hair is left so soft, smooth and it helped calm down the frizz. This is definitely one of the best hair oils that I have tried.

One pretty big downside I found when using the Extraordinary oil was the effect it had on my skin. It broke me out so badly on my neck despite tying my hair up whilst my hair was drying. It was painful and unsightly. Seeing as I wear my hair up in a bun 99% of the time this is a huge problem for me. I have stopped using it for the time being and it took a good week for my skin to recover. I would recommend giving it a go, products react differently on everyone so you could be lucky and not have any reaction to it at all.

You can find the L'oreal Extraordinary oil in most shops but Tesco tend to have it on offer a fair bit and Boots often do 3 for 2 deals. It retails for around €12 for a 100ml bottle.

27 March 2014

Today is the last day of the Best of Beauty challenge hosted from Samantha from All the buzz. I have to say this is not my favourite challenge at all because it always leaves someone out and they might feel a bit shite (which if not something I like to do at all) I don't think it's right to list out only a handful of the many bloggers that I like and make others feel like their blog isn't as good. So I'm not going to list my favourite bloggers, it's a bit cruel and I don't want anyone to feel left out.

Instead I will list out the other posts from this challenge in case ye feel like reading back over them:

26 March 2014

I'm starting to get into brighter colours again. I really wanted to wear an orange polish and for some reason Zoya Paz stood out to me. If you remember I did not get on with this polish the first time around. I had longer nails then and the sheerness bugged me to no end. I love the colour and the intensity of this polish though (it's a shame they cost so much over here)

Here I have on 3 coat of Paz. It covered my nail fully thankfully (I really hate Visible nail line) It dried fairly quickly, I did give it a bit of time in-between just incase. I love the way it looks on my nails now. It's so bright! Orange is one of my favourite colours but I find it awful hard to get the right orange nail polish shade for me. I wish it was more opaque but it's a great neon.

25 March 2014

Now I know I said I was getting sick of purple and now ye have a purple manicure in front of ye but I did this last week (during my purple phase) so I haven't suddenly changed my mind :P Although I have worn a purple holo since and I am in love with it. There will be swatches soon!

This week we had to go for a Winter/ Spring Transition manicure. I wasn't really sure what to do with this so I went for an ombre. I haven't really done this before seeing as I don't have enough variety in my stash to do it with a heap of colours. The purple section worked the best so here it is!

I have on 3 coats of Sally Hansen Complete Salon manicure in Plum luck, 2 coats of Catrice Lucky in Lilac, 2 coats of Barry m Berry Ice cream and 3 coats of Catrice Sing Hey Dirty lilah. The polish on my middle finger (lucky in lilac) was a bit lighter in person so the ombre effect looked fairly decent.

24 March 2014

One of the polishes I bought at the very start and rarely use is Essence Blue Addicted. It was so hyped up and I had seen some beautiful swatches but on my nails I hated it. It did absolutely nothing for me. For one you have to layer it because it is fecking sheer and half the time you don't see the glitter in it so it looked like a plain old polish.

I have to say I like it a little better on super short nails. It doesn't make me want to wear it a whole lot more but I like it. I have on a coat of Stargazer 105 and 2 coats of Essence Blue Addicted. It dries fairly quickly and the glitter can be a bit awkward to place but otherwise it was a pretty decent polish. When it runs out (which is bound to happen seeing as it's only a 5ml bottle) I don't think I would buy a similar polish again. It was worth a try at least and it was cheap, around €1.29.

21 March 2014

The last polish I have from the Sally hansen Spring Summer collection with Emma Manley is Aria Red-y? Another re-released polish. This is actually a raspberry shade as opposed to red as the name would suggest.In the bottle it does look red but it's raspberry on the nail for sure. It doesn't have any shimmer either. The formula on this was pretty good! I have on 3 coats. I think I like this a bit more than Sally Hansen's Right Said Fred polish which is just a pure bright red. Raspberry polishes are more up my street.

Like the other polishes I tried from this collection, Aria Red-y dried quickly with a beautiful shine. I'm not sure if this was starting to stain my nails or if my nails were just red from constant swatching. I haven't had an issue with staining with any other polish from the Complete Salon manicure range so I'll have to keep an eye on this one.

Overall I think this was a good, strong collection from Sally Hansen for Spring Summer. I like the polishes I have tried and I'm keen to see some reviews of the white shimmer polish from this collection called Bleach Babe which is new. The other new polish that I have seen swatches of and really dislike is Spruce up which is a murky green polish. Not my cup of tea. The last polish in this set is Shore Enough, a nude which is also a re-release. A good mix of colours although it would have been nice to see a lilac or a yellow thrown in to really get the Spring Summer vibe.

You can find the Sally Hansen Complete Salon manicure polishes in selected pharmacies, department stores and grocery stores around Ireland for around €8.95 for a 14.7 ml bottle.Cuti-CLUE-les

20 March 2014

This week's post for the Best of Beauty challenge hosted by Samantha from All the Buzz is your Favourite Treatment. I have never been to a Beauty Salon so the only real treatments I have are the ones I do myself at home. My favourites are really a toss between a face mask and a pedicure. Nothing extremely difficult or time consuming really but they make a huge difference (most of the time)

Face masks are my go-to skincare products because they are quick. easy to use and more often than not you see the results fairly rapid. The only downside for me is the price. Fair enough you can get the Montagne Jeunesse sachets for around €1.60 but they are messy and hard to store I reviewed a couple on here a few years ago). My favourite one for ages was the Pixy Rose Cleansing mud. I like the fact that it's a mud mask and it hardens on your skin so it doesn't drip everywhere. My skin was left incredibly soft after using it. Such a nice feeling!

Pedicures for me aren't a common occurrence. I tend to do them once a month maybe? The main reason I do it is to keep my feet in good shape. I know people hate talking about feet but I think it's important to keep them in good form seeing as we use them constantly. I did paint my toes last night with the new Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Blue Streak (there's a review here if ye'd like to give it a gawk) from their Spring Summer releases and I love it! Manicures aren't really a treatment for me seeing as I do them all the time :P

First off Sally Hansen Blue Streak was incredibly difficult to capture on camera. This is a bit darker in real life. It's more of a greenish teal than blue so I'm not sure where the name for this one came from. This is one of my favourites from this collection. I love that Manley chose a darker polish without going too dark and dreary. Blue Streak was incredibly glossy and it really looked like a salon manicure. I have on 3 coats. Again it dries quickly with a lovely shine to it. I didn't have any issues with staining after wearing Blue Streak which is good.

I don't know what it is about the Complete Salon manicure line but my camera does not like them! I'm guessing it's because they have that jelly consistency but it's a pain in the rump trying to photograph them. I thought this might be similar to China Glaze Exotic Encounters but Blue Streak is darker and without the dusty look to it. Really pretty polish, I know I'll get a lot of use out of this one (I already have it on my toes, it's so glossy. Dark polishes are perfect for pedicures)

You can find these for around €8.95 for 14.7 ml in selected Pharmacies, Boots and other department and grocery stores around Ireland.

19 March 2014

I was sent 3 of the polishes from the latest Sally Hansen Spring Summer 2014 collection, This was a partnership with Irish Designer Emma Manley. This collection has 6 polishes, 3 are new and 3 are re-releases from previous collections which is pretty common for Sally Hansen.

The polish I have to show ye today is Tahitian Sunset which is a re-release. Tahitian Sunset is a peachy/orange. It's quite light and it looks a bit off with my skintone but it's a nice polish. I needed 3 coats to make it fully opaque on my nails. It dried really quickly with a nice shine which I expected given the fact it's from the Complete Salon Manicure range. It's a great colour for Spring. It has a subtle shimmer in the bottle which doesn't really translate on the nail but that doesn't bother me all that much.

I love the wide brushes that they use for the Complete Salon manicure line. They cover my nails far better than most and it's easier to control the polish meaning less clean up afterwards!

You can pick this up in Boots and pharmacies for around €8.95 for a 14.7 ml bottle.Cuti-CLUE-les**Product was provided for review**

18 March 2014

Tip nail art sounds like a fairly simple challenge right? I could not for the life of me get one to work for me. This is the 4th attempt! It's not perfect (sure when am I ever prefect? Never, exactly) but I think they look ok. I like the colour combination at least! It's very springy to me.

I started off with 3 coats of Barry M Pink Flamingo on my index and ring fingers and 2 coats of Barry M Blueberry ice cream on my middle and pinky nails. Once they were dry I used a thin nail art brush and lightly added on striped gradient. I think they are called waterfall nails too? or is that when you do it around your cuticle? I've no idea! The gradient is all acrylic paint. I added on a topcoat to make it blend together. I think they look grand (maybe not so much the index finger but sure we'll just look past that one)

14 March 2014

Ye all know I love animated films so when I heard the Lego Movie was actually a real thing I was so fricking excited. I'm waiting for it to come out on Dvd (as always) so I went with a quick Lego inspired manicure.

From left to right- Wyldstyle (Lucy) , Emmett and Benny. The characters are all done using acrylic paints. The pinky is 2 coats of Zoya Paz with the Kiss nail art striper in silver on top. This was inspired by Emmetts work jacket. Unfortunatly Emmett got a bit smudged by the topcoat :( But I'm so pleased with the way Wyldstyle turned out! I thought she would be a nightmare to replicate.

The pictures were all taken with Flash as I'd finished this manicure pretty late and I knew I would wreck it before taking proper pictures in the morning. I love how short my nails are at the moment. It does make nail art a lot harder though :P

13 March 2014

This week we had to pick our best bargain product as part of the Best of Beauty series hosted by Samantha from All the Buzz. I don't have many bargain products outside of nail polish (catrice and Essence are the best bargain nail polishes in my opinion) but the Hask Macadamia oil Revitalizing shine hair treatment from Pennys is amazing. It's one of the best haircare products I have ever used.

Coming in at around €2.50 for an 18ml bottle it's very affordable and the bottle will last ages. They have 3 different kinds of hair oil available at the moment but I think the macadamia one works the best (and it smells divine) although the Argan oil version is well worth a try too. My hair is left softer and smoother and it has a lovely shine to it. I highly recommend giving this a go!

12 March 2014

The second item sent to me from the Born Pretty Store was a pack of nail stickers. I'm not normally a huge fan of nail stickers but I loved these ones. They have really thin studs effects on them and I love the colours and pattern.

There are 10 different designs available. I have them in #1 and you can see all the other designs available here. They are so easy to use but you have to make sure you really press down on them for a smooth finish ( I didn't press/cut the one on my ring finger enough so it's slightly raised) Overall though I really like them. I don't think they would last a full week but for a night out or a quick manicure they are fairly handy. They cost around $1.99 a pack at the moment. Well worth a try in my opinion.

11 March 2014

This week's Twinsie Tuesday prompt was your Go-To polish. I have a few to be honest, it depends what I'm doing or where I'm going. I decided to use 2, both are from essence and both are discontinued.

I have on 2 coats of Essence Irreplaceable, a beige with golden shimmer. Then I striped off the middle section and added on Essence Grumpy, a gorgeous cobalt blue. I added on the Kiss Silver glitter striper to clean up the edges where the striping tape had been. Lastly I added on the white dots in the middle using my dotting tool. I hope to replicate this in the summer with some neons, I'd say it would look pretty eye-catching.

10 March 2014

I was sent the QA75 plate from the Born Pretty Store last week. I thought I would go for an all blue look as I am sick to death of using purple. I don't know how it happens but I end up using a purple polish in almost every manicure I do lately and I a bored of it for now.

This is 3 coats of Sinful Colors Sugar Rush. I went with Sinful Colors Endless blue for the stamp. I have to say the stamp doesn't really look all that good on the nails. I used two different stamps from the QA75 plate. Only the index and pinky finger really look nice on the nails. The one I used for the middle looks a bit smudgy and crap.

08 March 2014

I finished this book a good 2 weeks ago but I have struggled trying to write up a review. The Black box is begins in 1992 during the riots in Los Angeles. A young white reporter is shot dead in a predominantly black suburb. This case strikes a cord with Detective Harry Bosch but given the dangerous surroundings and the rising death tally they have no more than half an hour to work in the scene before moving on to the next location. Fast forward to 2012 and the upcoming 20 year anniversary of the riots and Bosch attempts to finally get to the bottom of this case. Faced with very little evidence, no leads and a proposed backlash for focusing on a white womans death as opposed to one of the many unsolved deaths from the black community Bosch knows he has to find a lead and fast.

I was thoroughly disappointed by this book. It was incredibly slow and the story only started to pick up towards the very end. The conclusion was ok, it was nothing spectacular. It was a bland story without any real attempt to make you connect with the characters. It didn't get me thinking about what was coming next and how the characters were related to the story, if they were at all. The interactions with Harry's daughter and girlfriend were too brief and uninformative to really help the story progress in any way. The open end in regards to Detective Nancy Mendenhall was a bit annoying as I have no real desire to get more from this series so I have no idea why she ended up where she did (a bit cryptic there but I don't want to ruin the story if ye want to read it yerselves) It has a lot of politics in it which kills the story even more. It's a long enough book too (403 pages) It was a huge let down.

I expected far more from a Connelly novel having read "Void Moon" a few years ago and absolutely loving it. It was one of my favourite books and the reason why I bought this in the first place. I had been keen to pick up a few more from this series but I honestly don't think I will. It's too slow paced for my liking. The reasons behind the murder and the circumstances surrounding it were not believable at all. Overall I would not recommend it. It was an honest to god struggle to get to the end of this book. I couldn't even find a favourite quote from this book.

For the nail art I went pretty basic. I used Essence Black is black on all my nails abar the ring finger. This is a great black polish, 2 coats and it looks perfect. For my accent nail I tried out the negative space nail art trend that's going around. I have to admit I don't like the overall effect of it at all. Not one I'll be doing too often. The camera is done using acrylic paint and I tried to keep it as close as possible to the one shown on the book cover.

That's pretty much it for this week! I am on a terrible run with books at the moment. Not one has really stood out to me for the past 3 weeks. I'm trying to find some new authors seeing as the ones I like have either stopped writing or have only recently released a book. So far it's been a complete washout.

07 March 2014

A new review for ye today. I picked up the Dove Go Fresh Cucumber and Green Tea scent anti-perspirant deodorant about 2 weeks ago when it was on offer. I normally stick to Nivea but the shop didn't have the one I liked in stock so I threw this in the basket instead. I had the spray version of this years ago and I absolutely loved the smell of it.

This is a terrible deodorant. It didn't do anything except smell nice for a couple of hours. I didn't use this whilst working out but I'm sure it wouldn't have done much seeing as it couldn't even handle a bit of sweeping and some typing during the day! It didn't last 5 hours never mind 48. If they made this into a body spray then I would definitely buy that. The smell is gorgeous, really fresh and perfect for the summer. As a deodorant though this is a complete waste of money. I expected better from Dove to be honest. Despite being a 50ml bottle (the standard amount) it didn't last 2 weeks. I ended up having to buy a bottle of Nivea deodorant from another shop to replace it. Very disappointed with this and I would not recommend it.

06 March 2014

Basically today's prompt was to pick one of your favourite high end products. I don't really buy high end skincare products or nail polishes. For one replacing a high end skincare product would be so costly in the long run that I'd end up using it so sparingly I probably wouldn't see any benefit from it at all. Nail polishes always seem to have cheaper dupes so there is no need to fork out for one. The only high end product I do see the need to splurge on is perfume.

Although I do believe that you don't always get what you pay for and some high end perfumes don't last an hour and need to be applied so many times that you fly through the bottle, most are definitely worth the higher price. Basically you are paying for a name rather than a quality product .From all the ones I have I would say Lancome last the longest and have the best range of scents. The one thing I don't seem to have from them is a good day scent. All of the ones I own or have owned in the past are more suited to special occasion use or for the evening wear.

My absolute favourite from Lancome and the one that really caught me from the start was Hypnose. I remember smelling it on a girl in a shop and I asked her what it was and I never ask people what they are wearing, I feel so awkward. I went straight to boots afterwards to smell it again and bought a bottle in Debenhams not long after. It's the kind of perfume you smell and know it was from a high end brand. It is so beautiful. It's a soft scent, not overpowering at all. It is quite pricey though, around €77 in both Both and Debenhams for a 75ml bottle. I tend to keep this for special occasions so when I smell it I'm reminded of them. If I wear the same perfume day to day I tend to get sick of it and I really don't want the same thing to happen with Hypnose!

05 March 2014

This is from a fair while back (I want to say January?) It wasn't until after I'd finished that I started to think it looked like an egg (I even got a few comments saying the same thing) This is 3 coats of China Glaze Kalahari Kiss with a coat of Lac Attack Bunny Poop on top. I added on a matte topcoat (The essence one I think) and I loved the way it highlighted the different coloured glitters in Bunny Poop.

Even with the matte topcoat these lasted pretty well. I don't think they chipped at all for about 3 days and then I just took it off to swatch other polishes. I really like this combo though. It's a nice way to wear Kalahari kiss without it being too plain and boring. It's more spring appropriate.

04 March 2014

This weeks challenge was to do Grunge nails. I went for the easy choice and picked two of the grungiest looking polishes I own. Both are from Catrice. On my accent nail I went for Catrice Sir yes Sir, 2 coats. On the rest of my nails I have Catrice Rambo no.5.

I think both colours go well together. Both have an army theme going on too (I like the colour of Rambo no.5 but the name really won it for me)

03 March 2014

Another new indie brand! This is KBShimmer and I also got this from Gosia at Life in Color. Snow much fun is a sky blue jelly packed with various glitters in all different sizes including Snowflake shaped ones. This is a 3 coater but it works well over a similar shade of polish (Like Barry m Blueberry or even Sinful Colors Sugar Rush) I would recommend layering just to save on time but it looks good on its own.

I did not use a topcoat and I caught one of the Snowflakes on my hair and it bent (as ye can see above) and for the life of me I could not get it to sit flat after that. Definitely use a topcoat in future! The one thing I do not like about this polish is the large white circle glitters. It's just not my kind of thing. It's a very unique shade though and even though it's from a Winter collection (and it has snowflakes in it) I think this will look amazing in the Summer. It has small holographic glitters in it but they aren't all that apparent in real life. It lasted a good while on my nails without chipping and it didn't stain which is always a good thing. You can only order KBShimmer from Harlow&Co if you live outside of the US. I went on to see what they had in stock and to see how much they charge for shipping and it's a fair bit! To ship one bottle of KBShimmer costing $9 to Ireland I was given a shipping estimate of $9 plus. It's a bit of a rip-off for a single bottle!